Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today because I want to draw attention to yesterday, which was World Cancer Day. February 4th each year is World Cancer Day, and it’s an important day that we all must acknowledge.

Yesterday might have been World Cancer Day, but the truth is, every day is cancer day for someone or someone’s family. Just look around us. Even this Chamber has not gone untouched. We have people in this room and we even have people in our gallery who have overcome the struggle of cancer.

Cancer is not just an individual disease; it is certainly a family one. Whether we know them...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to this opportunity to get some clarity on some of our power rates here. The cost of living burden continues to weigh down on the everyday family, as we all know and we certainly hear about this. The question really continues to come to me is this McLeod government continuing to do the best that they can, and the question that arises is they’re concerned they’re not. Everybody knows the three components to the power issue, which is generation, distribution and certainly the customer access.

So I guess the question really comes down to, while we continue to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the Northwest Territories government was to eliminate any outside distributors and, at the time, the reason I ask this question is because I’ve been talking to the department about this one. So, what analysis has been done if we eliminate the outside distributors, therefore we don’t necessarily need a PUB and we roll the NWT Power Corporation into a department? Now, normally you describe this as a hypothetical, but this is work I know the department has been reviewing and evaluating. Where would this take us and what’s the predicted or estimated cost of lowering the...

Well, Mr. Speaker, I’m not sure Mrs. Groenewegen has a point of order. First of all, the company isn’t particularly named. Second of all, the profits that they’re able to make are listed through the PUB process, so that is public information, and when they’re earning millions and millions of dollars one can describe it with whatever adjectives they reasonably feel.

That said, Mrs. Groenewegen should also come clear with her connection, if there is any that we need to get on the record, a reason why she is defending the company. I don’t understand what may or may not be, but a few minutes ago I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the NWT Power Corp Minister about the rates and the profits noted through the PUB process for each distribution area.

Is the Minister able to speak to those types of profits that are made by our franchise agreements that are struck so they can make power distribution through our communities? I’ll leave it up to him to provide what level of detail he’s able to start with and we’ll kick it off from there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to call a point of order on the Member for Hay River South for accusing my last comments as all lies. I can refer to several sections, such as I felt that it’s imputing ill motive and in some ways some might even describe that as insulting, bad language. So we could spend time going through all of these, but they were a statement. Thank you.

I look to the gallery and my Yukon colleagues when I say this, Yellowknife is number one, and I say this as we have the highest power rate bill, be it Whitehorse, Iqaluit and Northwest Territories. Yellowknife, we have the highest power rate. So, we’re number one. The problem is, I don’t want to be number one anymore, nor does anyone in this city.

So the question now becomes why do we have southern distributors here in the Northwest Territories when we have an option to start squeezing this problem towards a positive solution. We have a southern distributor working here in the Northwest...

That’s fine, Mr. Speaker. I’ll just keep trucking along. My concern is trying to find out what the value is on the public record so we can talk about these types of things. The issue I’m really trying to drive at is are there opportunities for other distributors such as the NWT Power Corporation who doesn’t require to make a profit on the distribution rather than cover the cost, and that’s what I’m fundamentally driving towards. What is in the best interests of Northerners, and that’s the issue, is how do we distribute power in the most efficient and cost-effective way? Is there a door opening...

Is the Minister able to speak to the range of dollar value that, for example, our power distributors earn each year? It’s my understanding that they take at least several multi-million dollars out of the year due to profits and they provide to their insatiably hungry companies that are looking for profit. So maybe is the Minister in a position, as Minister of the NWT Power Corporation, with his familiarity with that type of issue and number so we can work from there? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s time that we start working on this particular problem. If I described it as a sandwich, we keep shaving down the two pieces of bread without worrying about what’s in the middle and we’re ignoring this problem. Millions of dollars through the PUB process get acknowledged that turn into profits that go to this southern company. Even the Town of Hay River is saying that they need to do business differently.

So I call upon this government with a little action maybe the Premier could explain to us here clearly, not just to me but all Northerners, how we can review this...